A fall in the number of Bradford families too poor to heat their homes is “very encouraging”, the Government says.

A total of 35,662 households were living in ‘fuel poverty’ in 2011 – spending at least ten per cent of their income on energy bills – official statistics show. That was down from 37,507 families the previous year.

The numbers in fuel poverty fell from 19.2 per cent in 2010 to 17.9 per cent a year later.

There were similar falls in Calderdale (from 19.5 per cent to 18.8 per cent), Kirklees (from 18.9 per cent to 17.6 per cent) and Leeds (17.2 per cent to 16.3 per cent), the figures revealed.

They mirrored the pattern across the UK, where the number of households in fuel poverty fell from 4.75 million in 2010 to 4.5 million in 2011.

Greg Barker, Climate Change Minister, said: “I am very encouraged by this modest fall in the number of households living in fuel poverty.”

But the charity National Energy Action warned the statistics were likely to prove a false dawn, because of hikes in energy prices over the last two years.

There has been growing anger about alleged profiteering by the giant energy companies, who have been accused of hiking prices at rates far higher than inflation.

Meanwhile, incomes have grown far slower than prices since 2011, sparking warnings that more families are struggling to pay their bills.

Maria Wardrobe, of National Energy Action, said: “While the figures appear to show some limited progress, fuel poverty figures for 2013 and 2012 have not been released and are still unclear.

“Last year, the Government estimated that price rises in the latter part of 2011 would have led to an increase of around 400,000 households in 2012 in England.”

Critics have accused ministers of failing to improve energy efficiency in homes, arguing such measures could cut household fuel poverty by 90 per cent.